37. Jettyday (some call it marriage)

2002

• Working for FAYS
• Moved in with Narda – parent’s house
• May 11 Jettyday
• July PhD 1st draft – almost finished
• July 13 to Melbourne 
• July 15 Sydney to consulate – Congressmen Sweeny bails us
• July 17 to Waikiki
• July 18 to Hilo met blood brother for first time
• July 22 California –
• July 26 Albany NY – in father’s trailer
• August Narda at Albany Academy for Girls, me @ State University of NY

Notes in some diary for 2002:
January 2002 `Narda in India me home with C did not see Leigh or anyone spent the day sorting out papers – about 200 free hosting sites as of January – Leigh playing ball – working for FAYS – doing PhD – walking to gym

2002 was the year of going from Spacey Terrell to Down-To-Earth Terrell. The year I would settle into the main relationship, apart from my children, of my life. It had taken me awhile, 54 years to settle but as mid-life crisis goes this looked different. Instead of being the male that drops out and starts to date women half his age, go to parties, get a sports car, start playing the drums, die hair and all the other things that mid-life-crisis people do I did what all mid-life-crisis people do; I changed my life completely. Being obsessed at the time and for the previous 40 years with coincidences and synchronicities I found them everywhere. From when we met as numbers; I was born in 1947 and Narda was born in 1954 and when we met, I was 54 and she was 47 (my year of birth in case someone read this and tried skimming past the facts) to having the rare Cinderella Degree in astrology we were one.

I continued to live in my Housing Trust house in Christies Beach for the first few months of 2002. Narda was in India for January doing a service trek with students, including going to the Mother Teresa Orphanagein Delhi. I was at home feeling sick from hepatitis C drugs; shooting up the interferon three times a week, now thirteen years later I am doing it again except that I only need to inject once a week. It is supposed to be the new and improved stuff now which means I feel sicker.

I found a book that Narda and I use to write back and forth to each other in. We started it at the beginning of our relationship and kept it going for about a year and a half. We would pass it back and forth until we moved in together.

Here is a part of an entry of hers for March 28th 2002:

Stage 2

“We’ve moved in together and decided to hang together.  – even get married!! Wow. This is a big move from this time last year.
Living in our “studio” apartment in Campbelltown is fun. I have really enjoyed it. We have proven that we can be together on a 24 hour a day basis and not get on each other’s nerves. In fact I’m rather surprised at how little friction there is. If you also throw in the “outside” factors – medication, pressure of thesis, uncertainty about jobs and moving, leaving children, living above the “in-laws’ it is remarkable how well we are doing…”

Astrologically yours

I sort of remember when I first got involved in astrology. Having been raised with constant reminders that astrology was most definitely the work of Satin I was more than anxious to find out about it. The worst one could do, according to my upbringing, was to believe in astrology, have sex before marriage and take drugs.  These were traps along the road to heaven and going off that path meant that one would be cast in to Hell where there was this huge lake of fire and the poor soul who believed in astrology, had sex before marriage or did drugs would spend eternity burning but never be burnt to death because after one dies there is no death but only a life with God in a Heaven of bliss or a Hell of tormenting damnation forever. It all seemed like such a pile of shit that I could not believe my parents or anyone.

Solar Progressed Mercury was conjunct the Sun in my natal chart in my tenth house it was time to make a long distance journey. The ninth house has had several significant meanings in my life. It has revealed long distance journeys such as my first trip of any distance from home and it has shown up in my marriage charts as being constantly married to foreign women and it has shown up to be the place of contact for my continuing formal education.

Now in Australia which we are informed is ‘the clever country’ I was getting in strife from webpage content that I was posting. This was long before the blogosphere was filled with zillions of comments; 99.7453 % being utter nonsense.  I was mad at the city buses for not being on time and I had written some stuff that I thought was funny and the Adelaide city bus company did not.

From: K…
Sent:    Thursday, 4 April 2002 2:42 PM
To:       R…
Subject: Se.unisa server
Hi R…
Can you let me know who you think looks after the following server
http://se.unisa.edu.au
I can see that the default site refers to Terrell Neuage.
I am actually more interested in the following Url as I have received an official complaint from the Passenger Transport Board regarding unsubstantuated content and I need to follow it up.
http://se.unisa.edu.au/weekly/neuageview/bus.html
Many thanks K..

• From:              K... 

Sent:    Thursday, 4 April 2002 4:27 PM
To:       G…
Cc:       R…
Subject:            FW: Se.unisa server
Importance:     High

Hi G…
As a matter of urgency would you either remove the offending content or forward to the person responsible for this particular page.
http://se.unisa.edu.au/weekly/neuageview/bus.html
The matter has been bought officially to my attention by the Passenger Transport Board.
Please advise when this has been done so that I can notify them accordingly
Many thanks
K…

• From:              G…

Sent:    Thursday, 4 April 2002 4:32 PM
To:       Terrell Neuage
Cc:       K…
Subject:            FW: Se.unisa server
Importance:     High

Can you please remove the content of this page and email me as soon as it is done.

• From:              Terrell Neuage  

Sent:    Friday, 5 April 2002 12:11
To:       Karl Dutton
Subject:            RE: Se.unisa server

I am happy to change any content that someone would find offensive as my real purpose is my academic pursuits. I did a weekly online column years ago and I was upset with buses not being on time and at times even driving by without stopping at the bus stop and I wrote a little ditty - somehow in both Goggle and Yahoo it became the number one and number two listing under ‘escape Adelaide’ (and Metro bus was number five in the listings) but I had not said anything negative really - not to worry.
Terrell Neuage
http://se.unisa.edu.au

• From:              K… 

Sent:    Friday, 5 April 2002 10:15 AM
To:       Terrell Neuage
Subject:            RE: Se.unisa server

Dear Terrell
Many thanks for dealing with this matter so quickly.
In regard to the actual content, I undersand that authority concerned would be happy to discuss any genuine points that you feel need to be addressed.
Please contact me if you need futher information.
Regards K

• From:              K…

Sent:    Friday, 5 April 2002 12:39 PM
To:       Terrell Neuage
Subject:            RE: Se.unisa server

Thanks Terrell,
Luckily we are seeing improvements in many areas.
The Passenger Transport Board advise that they now provide a feedback line (infoline 7days wk 7am-8pm) and are keen that any issues people wish to raise are bought to their attention. The number is 8210 1000.
Once again thank you for your cooperation.

Regards K…

To show how ridiculous my note on a website was (http://neuage.indiko.com/view/escape2.htm) I have inserted the actual spit below. Consider how tame this is compared to what is posted these days. Nevertheless it did provoke a bit of a storm at the time.

“Anyway to make a long story short, not having my car, I was forced to take a bus to the gym three times a week. One day, I missed the bus back home and as the buses run once an hour I was not in the mood to wait an hour for the bus. That is if the buses are running. They are rarely on time, and now thanks to the Prime Minister's (a sorry example of a Leo if there ever was one) new GST tax prices are going up about 10% for buses and trains and trams. Wouldn't it be great if we had a 10% increase in service and 10% increase in being on time of public transport?”

In earliest 2002 we moved in with Narda’s parents. It seemed sensible to us as we were in preparation to move to the States and we wanted to save money. Narda wanted to keep her house and rent it out. I did not have those issues as I did not own anything, not even a car. The problem came when we started looking at moving to the States. Narda had to have a large sum of money. I forget what but it was more than one-hundred thousand dollars. Even if she had a job, even if we did the ‘M’ thing we had to have this money to sponsor her. Considering I did not have any money saved and I was still getting single parent pension along with my occasional work there was not much I could offer. Narda reluctantly sold her house. We moved in with the parents. Into a small flat above their house. They were not thrilled. We just cocooned ourselves into our little world. A couple of butterflies; OK old butterflies, close to hatch and fly into the world in all our brilliance.

We filled the parents shed and their garage with our belongings. Our stuff stayed in boxes there for the next ten years. Actually I am still unpacking boxes and it is May 2015 and we have moved our boxes out of their house for quite some time. They sold their home whilst we were overseas living in China in 2012. When we were home for summer break we moved it all into Narda’s son’s house. When he moved out of his house a year later we had it all picked up and put into storage. We have been back in Australia for ten months now and this is our second home. We sold our first house at the beginning of this year after living there for five months. We bought where we are now and dragged our boxes, many that had not been opened for more than thirteen years and some I have not opened since my children were smaller back in the 1980s and 1990s. Now I am unpacking and my room is full; yes I finally get my own room/office after so long and our shed is gradually being emptied of boxes. I have boxes of crap that we sent to China from New York and that we shipped to Australia. I have a box of my father’s diaries that go back to the 1920s. He was born in 1905. I have boxes of my brother’s belonging and of Leigh’s.

Today, 08 May 2015 in the process of clearing out our house and shed that we have been renting for the past decade in upstate New York the couple who looks after our houses in Round Lake just wrote:

 “Susan and I have two boxes of photos and such in safe storage at our home. The rest can go if you would like…”

We sold 13 Second Street last week and now we are selling 15 Second Street Round Lake so we can be somewhat free of the States. http://neuage.org/house.htm. And no matter how far we go there is always more in storage somewhere waiting for discovery.

15 Second Street and 13 Second Street Round Lake New York

All about these houses - including images of our constructions and the history of here is at https://neuage.org/house/

Jettyday

One night I awoke with a jolt. Who knows what it was that took me out of a peaceful sleep and basically changed my life? I was awake for about two-minutes then I heard myself say;

‘Let’s do this’
Now I consider myself as romantic as the next dude. I think sunsets are a good preparation for foreplay and flowers are OK and I like cats and I write poems.

Sometimes I stop talking enough to listen to what the other person is saying. I never was the type that could get on one knee and proclaim my love forever. I had already done the ‘M’ thing once and there was not really any preparation for that. Wife’s number one visa had run out and the Japanese immigration lady in Hawaii; didn’t we send those people off of the island back in world war two for throwing bombs at the place? Said to stay in the States we had to hook up. We did not do a ring thing and just got hitched. No big deal. Well until we went to get unhitched then it was a mess.

Nevertheless Narda awoke quite quickly. She was sitting up. She was hugging me. She was all happy.

What was it I said?

So the next day we tell the parents who are of course delighted. Once again I could not wear a ring; I have never been able to wear jewelry, have piercing, tattoos and the rest of what normal people do.  Narda bought herself an engagement ring.

We decided to not do a church thing which did not please the parents. Instead we decided to do the deed on a pier. The Henley Beach jetty. We called it Jettyday. May 11 2002. I am sure there was some minister type of person that said stuff. Sacha came over from Melbourne and Narda’s three sons were all in town. Leigh was in the States playing baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I sent out some stupid invitations that said something about help us go off of the deep-end. The only person to represent me or be associated with me was Sacha. Everyone else were Narda’s friends and family.

For some odd reason I had decided that we should serve our guests. Narda was not so sure. We stayed up most of the night before making food. Tofu burgers, tofu cheesecake, egg things. Being the only vegetarian Narda was not so sure about my food selections. Perhaps she contributed some animal material I do not recall.
At the end of the pier there was some sort of ceremony though it escapes me now. Because we did not have rings to exchange we gave each other a flower lei. Sacha handed me Narda’s ring; I think she had bought a wedding ring to go with her engagement ring. I am not very up to speed on these social rituals. I know she has two rings that are representatives of that early union behavior that we experienced so I imagine they are from then. I was concerned I would drop her ring on the pier and I had terrible visions of it rolling off the end. Nothing terrible happened and we went off to the Henley Surf Life Saving Club and had the breakfast we had stayed up all night preparing.

Narda kept her surname. No woman would want to be another Neuage let alone a Mrs Neuage. There was more to it. Narda being one of four females in her family had told her father since youth that she would carry on the family name and so she has. I am not sure why people, especially women, change their name to their partners. It is proof of surrender like I no longer am me, just an appendix of you. Stupid!

Narda’s three musician sons sang Lee Ann Womack’s "I Hope You Dance":

   I hope you never lose your sense  of wonder,
   You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
   May you never take one single breath for granted,
   GOD forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
   I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
   Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
   Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
   And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
   
   I hope you dance....I hope you dance.
   
   I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
   Never settle for the path of least resistance
   Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin',
   Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin',
   Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter,
   When you come close to sellin' out reconsider,
   Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,
   And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
   
   I hope you dance....I hope you dance.
   I hope you dance....I hope you dance.
   (Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along,
   Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have  gone.)
   
   I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
   Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
   Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance, 
   And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. 

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leeannwomack/ihopeyoudance.html

Another of our potentially dumb things we did, we asked that no one give us any presents. Probably because we were going overseas and were trying to get rid of stuff not that it was obvious with the parent’s shed and garage full of our crap. Instead we asked for donations to someone that was doing work in India. We needed money so to give it away may not have been wise but we did.

We spent the rest of the day sleeping and stuff at the Largs Pier Hotel and dragged our sorry asses back to Narda’s parents a couple of days later.

OK here we are just married, I am 55 years old and Narda is 48 and we are living with parents. Not to worry somehow, we not only did that then but for the next 11 or 12 years we stayed in their flat when we came to visit each July when we were on school break in the States and later in China. We sometimes came back and stayed with them at Christmas. In total we would make like 15 round-the-world trips between the States and Adelaide or China and Adelaide.

Figure 243 Jettyday May 11 2002

Jettyday 2015
Maybe we are influenced by our parents.

My father wrote in his diary very little about the day I was adopted. I think the significant note is “Cloudy cold to Troy” followed by “Terrell for good”.

Terrell for good

Normally one would think that this is just a silly entry. However, my diary for 2002 consisted of mostly blank pages with a few notes regarding when things were due for my PhD or when I had some work.

For the second big Saturday of my life (the first being my adoption on October 28, 1950) I got married. At the time I could not say the ‘M’ word as I would refer to it. The fact that I was getting married again and to another Australian was somewhat alarming somewhere in my world.

“Jump off Pier
Largs Bay”

I got that wrong as it was Henley Beach Pier. Gosh darn I was dumb.

Jettyday May 11 2002 Diary entry

Soon after doing the ‘M’ thing we got a couple of positives toward our job hunting endeavors. We had sent out many letters to private schools in upstate New York as well as me writing to universities. Narda had a phone interview at about one am from the Albany Academy for Girls in Albany New York. She was hired at the end of the phone call. I began correspondence with the State University of New York at Albany and finally was offered a job to teach courses in speech and to make up a course called ‘globalisation’. Both jobs were part-time. We were so excited.
Back in New York I had come across a cousin, Fredrick Miller. I do not know how he fits in with my family but he was somehow related to my adopted father and often visited him. Fred either knew or had met Congressman John Sweeney. Sweeney lived in Clifton Park. Fred said if we needed any assistance with getting Narda into the States to let him know. Amazingly Sweeney did just that. I realize that in Wikipedia there is the statement, “The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and five to watch)". Sweeney was one of the 20”…, for Sweeney but he sure was our hero. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_E._Sweeney

Narda is incredibly thorough and she had made lots of enquires and sent all the documentation that the Yanks needed for her to get a fiancé visa. In July we said goodbye and headed to Sydney.

We had our airline tickets to the States for Monday 15th of July.

With great excitement and confidence we went to the US Consulate first up Monday morning. Everything fell apart. Firstly, they would not accept Narda’s passport photo because she had an earring on. Secondly, they said I did not have domicile as I had not lived in the States for twenty years. Then there was an issue with our bank statement showing Narda had more than her hundred-thousand dollars to go to the States. Our bank statement was a couple of weeks old and according to them was out of date. There was also an issue that I had not paid or lodged taxes for twenty years. What? I had not even worked enough to pay the rent. There were a whole lot of other issues and they were just flat out rude. There was even an issue that Narda’s birth certificate did not have a proper translation. We had gotten Narda’s Dutch papers legally translated and somehow we were able to prove it but not until a lot of hassle. The people sit behind thick Plexiglas and barely can answer one’s questions.

According to the web: Plexiglas, Poly(methyl methacrylate) is a transparent thermoplastic often used in sheet form as a lightweight or shatter-resistant alternative to soda-lime glass. It has a melting point of 160 °C. OK so we are a few months away from the World Trade Towers being knocked over and the Yanks live in fear. The way they act toward others one can see why they have such enemies.

We were devastated. At the time Narda’s son Stu was attending a school seminar in Sydney. We stayed overnight with him. We had decided to fly to the States via Hawaii to meet my blood-brother for the first time then go on to New York and sort out Narda’s visa along the way. After midnight, when it was morning in the States we rang Congressman John Sweeney’s office in Saratoga Spa, New York to confirm that we were doing the correct thing. We were told that no way should we leave Australia without Narda having a visa. We rang Fredrick Miller and told him about the visa stuff up. He said he would go to Sweeny’s office and see what could be done.

The next day, Tuesday, we borrowed Stu’s car and got of Sydney and stayed at a bed and breakfast in the Blue Mountains for two days. Thursday we went to Canberra to sort out our papers. We had no home, Narda having sold hers, airline tickets to the States, not much money except for what Narda had to leave in the bank to get a visa, and basically just a suitcase each and Narda’s son’s car. We had no idea what to do. We worked on getting everything we could for the consulate. They had said our visa application was now on the bottom of the pile and it could take weeks, even months, after we submitted everything again to be seen and interviewed to get a visa. We had gotten everything on their list from a new bank statement, to new passport photos and I had sorted out my tax papers. That was easier than I thought it would be as I claimed zero income for the whole time I was in Australia because I was on the single-parent pension and my tofu business was not making a profit or if it did I never was good at keeping records.

There was an issue with Narda’s police certificate. They did not accept her fingerprints because it was not next to her name. We went to a police station and they said it would take ten-working days to clear her fingerprints. We were going to be stuck in Sydney for a while. Maybe months. We had jobs to go to in a month and that should have helped our case but it did not. The people at the consulate just wanted to be pricks. We had cancelled our Tuesday July 16th flight then our following Sunday flight. Narda has a relative in the federal police and he gave us information on how to possible speed the process up. We posted our original papers to the Federal Police in Canberra and unbelievably they lost them. On Thursday night when we found they had lost them we drove to Canberra.

On Friday morning Narda had her fingerprints redone then we went to the Federal Police Headquarters to ask them to do the check and issue the certificate and luckily a friendly cop did it for us. They rang us at 2 pm that the paperwork was all complete. Instead of ten days we got it done on the same day. Narda has always said ‘No is the wrong answer’ and for the most part in life she has gotten us through almost impossible turbulence with this belief. Sometimes it has backfired and we have ended up as a gooey inarticulate mess.

Fron Narda’s notes on the day…

“We went to Woolies to shop – our darkest hour, both of us in tears, feeling absolutely hopeless.
We checked our e-mail – and – miracles of miracles – there was a letter from Fred Miller from Congressman Sweeney to say that our visa was ready to be collected on Friday

So we drove to Wollongong and stayed in a hotel on Bulli Pass.

On Monday after two nights in Sydney we went – with stomachs churning – to pick up the bloody thing.

Flew out to Hawaii on Tuesday morning – yah!!”  

It was only one week from the time we were originally going to leave and when we actually did leave but in one of those slowed down moments of life it seemed like months. If we had not pushed, especially Narda, flat-out we would have been in Sydney for weeks to months.

This would become a staple of our life together where against seemingly impossible odds we would move forward.

38. Arrival in America 2002